


sunrise parade

by mistyheartrbs



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Concerts, F/F, Gay Pride, Pride Parades, covering all my bases here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-10-27 05:14:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20754908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mistyheartrbs/pseuds/mistyheartrbs
Summary: Aqours is invited to perform at a very specific venue, which is not really a venue at all but a parade float, with just a few weeks' notice.It's an ordeal.





	sunrise parade

**Author's Note:**

> i've always liked that love live seemed to take place in a world without homophobia, and i also felt like (with aqours especially) the vibe of it all definitely lends itself to, y'know, a group of queer people finding kinship with each other, and then this happened.

Though nobody ever said it outright, Riko knew nobody in Aqours was straight.

(According to the gossip mags and Dia's tin-hat theories, nobody in Muse had been straight either, so they were in good company)

She knew of Hanamaru and Yoshiko's ridiculous Shakesperean romance, of Kanan and Mari's love story that nearly ended in tragedy, of You's unrequited feelings for Chika . . . the list went on, and it was comforting, unspoken, knowing she wasn't alone. After all, one wouldn't necessarily expect a tiny little beachside town to be all that friendly to girls like her, at least not as friendly as the city had been.

***

Chika had known she liked girls from a young age, hadn't really acted on it besides talking to You about it once, a moment that had been met with such relief.

"Me too," You said, face breaking out into a great big smile.

They'd hugged for a while after that. It was middle school.

Still, she hadn't fallen so deeply in love until Riko showed up, and their frist meting was not at _all_ what one would really constitute as romantic - they were awkward and sopping wet and cold and shivering and talking about _Muse_ of all things - but Chika had fallen all too quickly.

All of this was to say that she didn't know how to approach it, as the group's de facto leader, when she got an email from a Tokyo event organizer, asking if her group would like to perform in a pride parade, and yes they'd need to talk to their parents because most of them were minors, right, and they'd refund the train tickets it was just that most of the _ more famous _ idol groups didn't want to risk their reputations.

"That's kinda insulting," she muttered, rereading the last part. Shiitake panted beside her, patiently waiting for some attention. Chika slid open her door. "Hey, Riko!" she yelled. "How does an Aqours performance at a parade sound?!"

"It's too early for this," Riko groaned, opening her door anyway. She shuffled when she was tired. Chika had noticed this - her whole body hunched over and glided across the ground like Yoda from that _Star Wars_ movie that Mari made everyone watch once, for some reason. "Why wouldn't we perform at a parade?"

"Ah, well . . . it'd be, ah, taking a political stance? I'm all down for it, but I've gotta get approval from everyone else before I say okay."

"What kind of parade?"

"It's a pride one. Pretty important, right?"

"It shouldn't be a problem. I can message the others to come over here, it's Saturday so they should be around." 

"Thanks, Riko." Chika put her hands on the railing, bent her legs. "Is it okay if we go to your place?"

"Sure." Riko shrugged, patted down a loose tuft of hair that had sprung up. Chika felt a pang of love in her chest, and also a pang of regret for what she'd already started to do, which was launch herself over to Riko's balcony.

***

"You're ridiculous," Riko muttered, later, as she wrapped bandages around Chika's skinned knee. The intimacy of the act was not lost on her. "We're school idols. You have to take care of your body. Also, I live next door! You can just walk!" 

"It's not as cool that way," Chika said, wincing as Riko tightened the bandages. 

"Ridiculous," Riko repeated, just as Mari and Kanan strode in. They were attached at the hip nowadays. 

"Now," Mari said, plonking herself on Riko's bed like she belonged there, "-what's this about _gay rights?"_ She said the last part in English, and Kanan gave a good-natured eye roll before settling down right next to her. 

***

Everyone else filtered in soon enough, and Riko's room was very much not big enough to comfortably accommodate nine people, but they managed and because of that Chika found herself squeezed _extremely_ close to Riko, which was doing certain things to her head and heart and other things. 

"So, let's take a vote," she said, once she'd finished explaining. "Close your eyes." She hoped everyone did it, because she'd closed them too. "Everyone in favor of performing at the parade?" Chika opened one eye, having quickly realized the flaw in this plan, and saw that everyone's hands were high in the air. Contented, she pulled her phone out of her pocket, began to draft a response. 

***

"Pick up the pace, people!" Dia clapped as the members of Aqours tried (and frequently failed) to keep in time with the rhythm. "We're going to be on a float, you'll need to keep your balance!"

"Can't we have a break, zura?" Hanamaru whimpered.

"We're on the clock for ten more minutes, _then_ you can have a break!"

"She's like a drill sergeant," You said, quiet enough that only Chika could hear. Riko looked over at her, saying nothing. 

"It's because Muse is from Tokyo," Kanan explained, voice lowered in the same way. "They've all gone their separate ways, but some people think they're going to show up."

"To perform?!" Chika squeaked out, earning her a harsh glare from Dia. Kanan and You shrunk back. 

"Just to be there," Mari said, finishing Kanan's statement as easily as if they'd been married for years. "Even if they are, though, we won't see them, will we? We'll be singing and dancing at _full speed,_ it's hard to look down." She blinked quickly, as if trying to block something out, and nearly tripped. "Ah, whoops."

"That's enough, everyone," Dia sighed. "Take five."

***

In the weeks that followed, the routine began to take shape, the rainbow costumes began to take form, and Aqours was exhausted by the end of each day, but excitement buzzed in the air nonetheless, unsaid but very much _there_.

"What do you think of this?" You asked, rubbing a fabric sample between her fingers. Chika looked over it curiously, setting aside the bundle of fake fur that had caught her attention.

"Seems nice," she said. 

"It's not too gaudy?"

"You're the expert on this stuff, You-chan. I don't know much about it at all."

"If you say so." She held the fabric sample to her chest for a moment, sighed quietly. "Hey, Chika-chan?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you happy?"

_Oh._ "I guess so? I mean, life's always changing so it's hard, you know, to be one way or another for too long, but . . . right now? Yeah, I think so. After all, I've got you and Riko-chan and everyone else in Aqours, and we're gonna be performing in this great big parade in Tokyo! It's pretty amazing."

"Right. Yeah." Another pause. A fan whirred somewhere else in the store, clanking through the silence. "I'm glad." 

"Me too."

***

Considering the limited time, they'd opted to reuse old songs instead of coming up with something new for the performance, but that didn't stop Riko from secretly scribbling out lyrics in her spare time, curled up under her covers with her phone screen acting as a flashlight. 

(Chika had told her once that there was some way for her to actually turn the phone's camera into a flashlight, but she'd never explained it and Riko had never gotten around to looking it up)

"It's getting colder," she said out loud, wondered if that worked as a lyric. Mostly it was just an observation - she left her window open most nights to let the crisp ocean air in (and also so she could hear any late-night yells from a certain neighbor) - but she repeated it under her breath. Riko pulled her blankets closer. "It's getting colder, but I'm warm as anything."

***

The dress rehearsal (taking place in the gym, because they only had so much time they could spend in Tokyo) was attended by a handful of outsiders, including but not limited to:

-Riko's mother  
-Shiitake  
-at least ten classmates  
-You's cousin visiting from out of town  
-one patron of Kanan's father's shop who needed to ask about diving equipment afterwards  
-Chika's extended family

Needless to say, it was a tad nervewracking, but then again they'd be performing for thousands - on a moving float, no less - so this worked well enough as a practice run. 

"Okay, I guess I've gotta make a speech?" Chika's palms were sweaty - she dreaded the eventual group handshake. "Even though we're gonna do this again in two days, I Just wanted to say we're doing really great, and I'm really glad you're all doing this with me." She blinked back tears. "I'm saving the better stuff for the real thing, okay? Let's do this!"

***

Riko always had a hard time remembering exactly what happened during live shows - muscle memory tended to take over, her whole body acting on autopilot as the world spread out in front of her - and this time was no exception. It was nothing like the careful deliberation of the piano; it was a living and breathing thing that felt like a dream. Soon enough she woke up, so to speak, and the little crowd in front of her clapped and whooped.

"We did it," she murmured, looking over at Chika. "We're really doing this."

***

It wasn't that long of a train ride to Tokyo, really, but the seconds ticked by so very slowly. They were set to stay in a hotel close to the beginning of the parade route the night before, and the bundle of costumes lay next to You, who watched them like a hawk. 

"I dunno if we're ever performed in front of this many people," Chika said, even though she knew it was absolutely the wrong way to say right then. She had to say it, lest the fear eat her alive. She had to be absolved of it. 

"Really? Not even for Love Live?" Mari hung over the seat behind her, inquisitive. Chika got the sense she was humoring her - Mari was the businesswoman, Mari knew the stats of everything. 

"It's about the same," Kanan explained, pulling her back. "It just looks like more because everyone's packed together over the whole stretch of the place. Don't scare her, Mari. We'll be fine."

"We've never performed on a moving thing before, zura!" Hanamaru fretted. "What if someone falls off?"

"What if it turns out to be a great beast and gobbles you up?" Yoshiko boomed from the seat next to her. "What if it's a portal to Hell?" Hanamaru frowned.

"Now who's scaring people, zura?"

"I was kidding! They have railings, you know. You've really never seen a parade before?" 

"We don't have a TV." 

"Right. Well. They have railings. Which won't protect you little demons from the great forces of the underworld, but whatever." Yoshiko let out a little sniff and went back to playing a game on her phone. 

"You'll be fine, Chika-chan." Mari looked out the window at the rolling fields. "Don't you worry about it."

***

Riko felt the same strange displacement she always did on her trips back to Tokyo - the sense one would get at seeing a once-beloved shirt too small to wear anymore, a world she'd once belonged to and no longer did. She could see the buildings in her mind's eye seconds before coming upon them. 

Right now, they were standing in front of a hotel that stretched into the clouds.

"We're on the third floor," Chika said, reading off the email. "Rooms 306, 307, and 308. We'll all be neighbors, I guess!"

"Close to the ground," You observed. "These places are like fifty levels, right, Riko-chan?"

"Usually, yeah." She'd never stayed in a hotel here - it was her hometown, after all, she'd never needed to - and she was struck by the oddity of her and You's positions being reversed, of her being the expert. 

(Of course, she knew very little about this subject in particular, because why stay in a hotel when you lived here, but it was still strange)

_"Let's go,_ then!" Mari cheered, leading the pack. Dia glanced furitively around, as if a member of Muse would pop out of the neatly trimmed hedges, and then followed. The doors slid open at the slightest movement. 

Riko had forgotten they did that. 

***

"Okay, we got three rooms, so why don't we just split 'em up by year?" Chika stood in front fo the three doors as if trying to decipher some riddle. _Only one leads to the right path._ She remembered kids' shows talking like that, anyway. 

"I don't want that," Ruby mumbled. 

"Why not?"

"'S too big. I don't wanna just be the three of us."

"I'll room with Ruby and Hanamaru," Dia cut in. Ruby breathed a sigh of relief. "Kanan, Mari, would you take Yosh- Yohane?"

_"Vindication,"_ Yoshiko whispered under her breath, pumping a fist. "I'm not even going to act insulted that you're passing me around like a dog."

"I know the importance of a good nickname," Dia said, shepherding her two charges into the first room. Yoshiko seemed to catch the hint. 

"Thanks, Dia-chan," she called out, and Chika could've sworn she saw Dia grin before shutting the door. Kanan and Mari and Yoshiko went to the other end, and Chika found herself in the middle with her two very closest friends, who were not very close with each other, who were waiting for a gigantic performance through the streets of the biggest city in Japan. 

Chika could've fainted with relief when she saw there were three beds. 

***

A game show played in the background as You silently worked on the last adornments on the costumes. Chika's eyes were glued to the television - the contestants were biting door handles and chairs and anything else they could get their hands on to see if it was secretly made out of chocolate - and Riko watched the both of them, equally occupied. Nervous rituals took different forms, she thought, miming an old piano movement with her fingers. She wished she'd brought a deck of cards, or downloaded some game as Yoshiko had, anything to distract her from the upcoming performance. 

"I'm nearly done," You said, and Riko leaned over to look at the skirt - probably her own, considering the _RS_ stitched into the tag. "I was going to do little hats, but they don't travel well."

"You're really good at this," Riko marveled, and it was true. "I mean, I knew that before, but . . ."

"Hey, I get what you mean." With a practiced motion, You snipped a thread off the needle. The tiny sound cut through the room. "I used to bite it - more cinematic - but that hurts your teeth, and this is more precise." 

"Ah." Riko folded her hands in her lap, looked up when You held up the skirt for inspection. 

"This one's yours." 

"I figured."

"They're matching this time. It's just easier that way." Fondly, You looked over at Chika, who was cheering at the TV. "It was such short notice, you know, that's why I'm on such a time crunch. But of course she'd want to do this as soon as she'd heard about it." She set down the skirt. "That's Chika for you."

"Yeah." Riko paused, didn't know what else to say. "I'm going to shower now. I might as well try to get some sleep, right?"

"Right."

***

Riko had fallen asleep quicker than one would expect, and the show had given way to late-night news, and Chika and You lay in their respective beds, staring up at the ceiling fan. 

"Can't sleep either, You-chan?" Chika whispered to the fan. The rustling beside her seemed to say _yes._ "I'm a little nervous."

"Same here." In the fuzzy darkness, You sat up. Chika followed suit. "You're a good leader. You know that, right?"

"Do I?" Chika said it ruefully, with more spite than she'd intended, but she didn't retract it. She just let it hang there, waited for a response. "I'm not Honoka Kousaka, You-chan. I'm not someone who instills this crazy optimism in everyone. It should really be Kanan who's leading, or Mari, or . . ."

"We've been friends since we were little kids, and you've always been like this." Traffic honked outside. Neither girl was used to the loudness of it, and they both sat a little straighter when a siren blared. "You know that, right? Back when you came out to me you took, like, _ten_ minutes explaining everything tangentially related to it before you could even say you were gay."

"I remember! It was scary!" 

"And how do you think I felt? But afterwards it was like this giant weight off my shoulders, knowing you were . . . you know. Like me."

"Yeah." Chika twiddled her thumbs. "That's why we're doing this, right? For all of the little versions of us?" 

"And of everyone else in our group. You're not the only one getting emotional about this whole thing."

"I guess. It's just not something we talk about." Chika shrugged, and You leaned in closer. 

"Would you rather hear about our friends' wild-"

"Ew, no, You-chan, we've known some of them since we were babies! I just meant, y'know, if we'd . . . I dunno. It's hard to explain." 

"Most things are." A pause. "I think I get it, though."

"You do?"

"It's nice to be seen." You's silhouette slipped back under the covers. "That's what we're doing. Get some sleep, Chika-chan. You'll need it." 

***

They arose bright and early the next day, meeting the parade organizers at a street corner where they beheld, for the first time, the float. 

"It's beautiful," Chika breathed. 

"It looks like a boat!" You exclaimed. 

"It's a boat that runs on land! What a world to live in, zura!" Hanamaru swooned. 

"I hope this isn't too simplistic for you all," the lead organizer - a tall woman with piercings - said. "We just figured the nautical theme would-"

"It's perfect." Riko looked up at it again, standing there all proudly in the morning light, and her heart seemed to fill up.

***

Preparations flew by, costumes adorned, sound checks performed, and before she knew it Chika found herself at the front of the great big ship, looking at the rainbow sails fluttering behind her. 

"Are you kids ready?" the organizer yelled from below. Chika flashed her a thumbs-up. She hoped nobody would be able to see her hands shaking from up here. 

"It's time," she whispered to Riko, and she tried to calm her stuttering heart when Riko held her hand. 

"It is."

"Aye-aye! Set a course for the streets of Tokyo!" You shouted out, pointing ahead and spinning the decorative wheel for the hell of it. "Let's do this!"

***

Riko was used to the surreal feeling overtaking her during live shows - she wasn't used to this, an audience surrounding her, thousands cheering her on from every side, painted and waving flags around like their lives depended on it. She was aware of every second, every moment, every time her feet made contact with the wooden floor of the fake boat. They were loud, out here, they were standing in the sun with nothing to hide from and it was _brilliant._

A breeze swept through the street, and Riko decided she'd come back next year, that she'd play her song here even if nobody heard it. 

***

They reached the end of the parade route sweating and grinning, Hanamaru all but jumping into Yoshiko's arms as Kanan swept Mari up bridal-style and kissed her on the lips for all the world to see. 

"We did it!" Chika cried, holding Riko close, and she wanted to save this moment forever but she knew there'd be others to follow, and besides things were already happening. Ruby was the first off the float, legs wobbling like a baby bird, and the other two first-years followed, stuck together like glue. 

"You all did great," the organizer said from the driver's seat. "Go out and mingle now, will you? You're only young once."

"Will do, captain!" You chirped, saluting her. 

"I think you'd be the captain, kid." 

"Looks like someone's got a crush, zura," Hanamaru snickered. It could've been blamed on the heat, but You's face turned red. 

"Anyway! Let's do what she said!" Walking with her shoulders squared, You disappeared into the crowd, followed by the first-years. 

"Ah, we missed half of them." The voice was familiar. Chika knew this. She couldn't place it, though, not in all the exhilaration of the day. 

"At least some of them are still here." Another familiar voice. Two women stepped out of the crowd. Chika squinted at them. 

"We just wanted to congratulate you all - that was a splendid show." The woman's hair was different than it'd been in videos, and a big floppy sun hat shaded part of her face, but Chika definitely got the sense that this was-

"E-Eli Ayase?" Dia stuttered out, all but trembling. "You're here? Eli Ayase?"

"That's me. I haven't heard anyone call me by my full name like that in a while." Eli took off her hat, stuck out her hand to shake Dia's. "You're that up-and-coming Aqours, aren't you?"

"I am! I mean, we are! Aqours! I'm Dia Kurosawa but that doesn't really matter, does it, because you're _Eli Ayase_ and what does my name mean to-"

"It matters," Eli said, putting a comforting hand on Dia's shoulder. It might as well have been a bolt of lightning. "You matter. We never could've done this, way back when. You're all kind of amazing."

"Me? No. There must be- _Eli Ayase._ You're here."

"Unless I died and nobody told me." 

"Hah, Elicchi, leave the jokes to me," the other woman said, and that was probably-

"Nozomi Tojou! You're here too?"

"It wouldn't be a parade without my wife," Nozomi said, leaning on Eli with a sly grin. Chika had a decidedly powerful sense of déjà vu. "I think you're doing great things, you Aqours. I think we'll keep an eye on you." She winked, then, started to slip back into the crowd. "You've got a good future in the cards."

"Eli Ayase," Dia said, numb, kind of in shock. "She likes us. She knows who we are. I can't believe it." 

"Go after her, then." Kanan nudged her, smiling wryly. "I've known you long enough to know this is your dream. Let those two know how much they matter to you."

"Thank you!" Dia started in Eli and Nozomi's direction with the excitement of a little kid. 

"We'd better make sure she doesn't pass out," Kanan added, and Mari nodded. 

"We should," she said, and the two of them left Chika and Riko to stand alone together in the crowd. 

"Pretty amazing, huh?" Chika poked Riko with her elbow, not unkindly. She hadn't planned it like this - just the two of them, standing here, among a sea of people - but it wasn't something she minded, either. 

"It is." Riko turned to her, eyes glistening, taking Chika's hands into her own. "You know that I love you, right?"

"The world stopped, and then it kept going, and Chika smiled.

"Yeah," she said, and watched it all go by, and in the midst of the loudness and the celebration and the still-ragged breaths she was taking from the performance she felt at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> the game show chika was watching is a real thing
> 
> it was really fun to write this! i just really love aqours


End file.
